08-12-15: Psag
I had the 5a years ago. Nice speaker, but very polite unless it received a lot of watts. Downward firing subs are not to everyone's liking. Very limited sweetspot. Dynamic limitations due to those small drivers. Lack of punch in the lower midbass. Is the 7 so radically different?
The problem her is the equipment not the speakers. I thought the same thing - typical Vandy house sound but since I build my own gear now, that changed the way the Vandy speakers sound. Goes to show you that you cannot make a judgement unless you have tried all the options. I run my very old 5s with a DHT DAC, Preamp and modified Counterpoint SA-100. These components changed the sound dramatically.
Happy Listening.